A transformation agenda gone awry

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

There is no doubt that President Goodluck Jonathan’s much touted transformation agenda has gone out of kilter. Recent happenings in the country prove that things are off beam.

Last week must be, so far, the busiest and most distressing for the President in his eight-month-old presidency. In one week, he had cause to address the nation twice. Watching him speak to Nigerians on Saturday in a spirited bid to take in hand the fallout of the unilateral decision of his government to remove the contentious subsidy on petrol, I saw a clearly distraught man. 

Penultimate Saturday, the President also addressed the nation when he, invoking Section 305(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), declared a state of emergency in 15 local government areas of Borno, Plateau, Niger and Yobe states, and ordered a temporary closure of the country’s borders with Chad, Niger and Cameroun. It was his answer to the escalation of violence by the extremist Islamic group, Boko Haram, which shocked Nigerians and, indeed, the international community by the string of bomb attacks that claimed dozens of lives on Christmas Day.

Penultimate Wednesday, the President summoned an emergency Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting with two issues on the agenda – deregulation and the state of emergency.

I had nothing but pity for him on Saturday as he addressed a populace that had become cynical and distrustful. I saw a man whose presidency was unraveling right before him. That is one of the most difficult positions any leader can face. And this is not an elite gang-up. It is coming from the same masses, who only a few months ago saw him as one of their own, the man from the rustic Ijaw village of Otuoke who wore no shoes while growing up because his parents could not afford to buy one.

The presidential election was held on April 16, 2011, and I have no doubt that Jonathan, despite the noticeable infractions, won.  Credulous and superstitious Nigerians, who not only saw him as a breath of fresh air but also wished that their beloved country could share in his fabled run of good luck, voted for him. Something has, therefore, gone fundamentally wrong for the same masses that earnestly yearned for Jonathan only eight months ago to call for his impeachment.

But it is easy to explain what is happening. Nigerians elected Jonathan President on sentiment – a Christian from one of the minority ethnic groups in the South. Some went a step further to say that considering his meteoric rise in the power circuit; he must have been God-ordained. In doing all these, Nigerians ignored the most important criterion in any leadership recruitment exercise – Capacity.

They failed to ask whether the man in whose hands they were going to place the fate of over 150 million Nigerians had the capacity. They failed to ask the man they were about to hire as their President what he would bring to the table. They neither took him to task on his would-be policies nor interrogated the manifesto of his political party. They neither tasked him on his vision for the future nor mission in government. At the end, Jonathan broke world record as the first man to clinch the highest elective office in his country promising nothing. “I will promise nothing, but do more,” he told Nigerians. Nobody figured out that if he promised nothing, then he can only do more of nothing.

Unfortunately, countries are not run on the wheels of good luck. Governance is not a feel good project. It is too serious a business to be reduced to a trial and error paradigm. There must be well thought out policies and programmes. When Jonathan was sworn in on May 29, 2011, he had no agenda. Such a scenario is a recipe for crisis. And that is exactly what we have on our hands.

Nigerians have every reason to be angry over the precipitate and impetuous action taken by Jonathan on the issue of fuel subsidy. While pretending to be consulting, Nigerians woke up on New Year day to discover that the Federal Government had unilaterally increased the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise called petrol, by over 115 percent from N65 to N141 per litre. It was the height of deceit for a government that lays claim to being democratic to begin a patently bogus debate after concluding plans to ambush an unwary citizenry with a fait accompli, an economic diktat.

On Saturday, the President addressed the nation in a desperate attempt to avert a possible shutdown of the country by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and other civil society organizations. But if there is any reason why the strike which started on Monday should continue, it is the President’s speech. Why? If it took the threat of mass action for the President to agree to a cut, no matter how cosmetic, in the cost of governance, then Labour is treading the right path. It will take the mass action proper to compel him to walk his talk.

Aside the surreptitious removal of the subsidy on a most inauspicious day, government had taken two faulty steps since Labour declared its intention to challenge the policy in the court of public opinion. First, youths believed to have its backing, on Friday, invaded the Secretariat of the NLC in Abuja with heavily armed policemen, who cordoned off part of the NTA Link Road where labour House is located, looking the other way. The same day, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Muhammed Bello Adoke, sought and got an injunction from the National Industrial Court (NIC), restraining NLC and TUC from embarking on the industrial action. Since then, the government has been rattling the sabre, all in an attempt to intimidate Nigerians off the street.

Whether the unpopular policy of the government will prevail over the will of an aggrieved citizenry to resist it will depend on how angry and determined the people are. The Arab Spring has proved most conclusively that when a people are sufficiently angry and determined to take their destiny in their own hands, no government, no matter how powerful and entrenched, can stop them.

On Saturday, the President agreed that to “save Nigeria, we must all be prepared to make sacrifices.” Before now, we have had the unsavoury situation where the long-suffering masses were cajoled to tighten their belts while the fat cows that superintend over the affairs of state loosen theirs. The President claimed that he had “directed that overseas travels by all political office holders, including the President be reduced to the barest minimum. The size of delegations on foreign trips will also be drastically reduced; only trips that are absolutely necessary will be approved.”

He also claimed that, “For the year 2012, the basic salaries of all political office holders in the Executive arm of government will be reduced by 25 percent … All Ministries, Departments and Agencies must reduce their overhead expenses.”

These are beside a raft of other promises including “the mobilization of contractors for the full rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri railway line and the completion of the Lagos-Kano railway line,” and the immediate employment of 370,000 youths through a public works programme.

I doubt if any of these promises will ever be fulfilled if Jonathan gets away with his fuel subsidy gambit. But even if he decides to prove skeptics wrong and keep to his promise, it will still be instructive that it took mass revolt for a government that claims to be on a mission of transformation to realize that the first agenda on the table ought to be a drastic cut in the cost of governance.

In the N4.7 trillion 2012 Appropriation Bill which the President presented to the National Assembly last month, N3.3 trillion, representing 72 percent, was for recurrent expenditure. That, definitely, is not a budget with the intent of transforming Nigeria.

Therefore, these concessions are not voluntary; they are forced. If it took the threat of strike to force the hand of government into addressing the core issues of governance, then the strike must go on because that is the only way to ensure that this time around, Jonathan does not renege, as he is wont to do, on the promises he made on Saturday.  

 

Time to discuss the Nigerian project

 

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Published: January 3, 2012

I had no doubt before now that 2012 will be a difficult year for Nigerians and the government they elected in April. It will be difficult politically for the government, economically for the people and socially for both. All the tell-tale signs were there long before now. With the mounting human tragedy in the North due to the unrelenting bombing campaign of the extremist Islamic group, Boko Haram, and a looming religious strife, it is a year Nigerians should face with trepidation.

What I didn’t know was that President Goodluck Jonathan would personally stoke the embers of the already smouldering energy crisis and exacerbate the tension in the country so early in the day by authorizing the removal of fuel subsidy on New Year Day. Coming after the Information Minister, Mr. Labaran Maku, announced, after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on December 21, that the Federal Government was yet to fix a date for the commencement of the policy, that amounts to an ambush.

When the fact that Maku’s “clarification,” a rebuttal of an earlier statement made by the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Austen Oniwon, that the policy would begin automatically with the implementation of the 2011 budget, is thrown into the mix, it becomes obvious that the government was, while claiming to be consulting with stakeholders, ensnaring the people.

It acted in bad faith, more so, when the 2012 budget estimates are yet to be passed into law and the National Assembly had already authorized the executive to implement the 2011 budget till March 31. The President, himself, while presenting the Appropriation Bill created the impression that implementation of the policy would start in April. The government has not started implementing the 2012 Budget. In fact, the Bill is yet to be passed into law. So, President Jonathan decided not to even wait for the budget. He has decided to operate outside his own 2012 fiscal framework.

Removing the so-called subsidy on New Year Day, a Sunday, when Nigerians were still in celebratory mood was an unkind cut; an act of bad faith that can only widen the gulf of mistrust between the government and the people. 

On Monday, a journalist-turned-banker friend of mine who travelled to the East for the Yuletide sent this text. “There was anguish in Owerri this morning – Monday, January 2, 2012 – as most Christmas returnees woke up to discover they can no longer afford the transport fare back to their bases. Could you imagine that fuel is already selling for N200 in some areas in the East? I have filled my tank with N20,000 worth of petrol and I will do this twice before I reach Lagos. Christmas returnees are already stranded in their villages as transport fare has gone hare wire.” This is surely the definition of hardship, which the President, ironically, promised on New Year Day not to inflict on Nigerians.

It is incongruous that a government that needs all the goodwill it can muster from the people is the one deliberately pushing Nigeria onto a slippery slope. I wonder what gives Jonathan the confidence that he can weather the harsh storm his action will indubitably induce. 

But that is an issue for another day.

For now, I am more concerned about the precipitate descent of Nigeria into a state of anarchy and the hardening positions. Following the Christmas Day bombing at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, Madalla, Niger State, I warned that the country may inexorably be drifting towards sectarian conflict. The reactions I got, rather than assuage my anxiety, heightened my fears. Of the numerous text messages I received, I was particularly alarmed by what one D.A. Muh’d Kano (08079962089), who sent a text message from Abuja said. “You were silent, perhaps happy when ARNAS attacked and killed helpless Muslims at Jos Eid-Praying ground. Now, the turn of the so-called Chosen ones has come, and as expected, you are now making noise through your shameless newspapers.”

Boko Haram spokesman, Abul-Qaqa, who spoke to journalists in Maiduguri on telephone shortly after the attack, also claimed it was an act of reprisal to avenge the killing of some Muslims in Jos, Plateau State, during the Eid-el-Fitri festival.

Abul-Qaqa said the attacks were meant to prove that no amount of surveillance by security agents would deter his members from doing whatever they planned to do. “By the grace of God, we are responsible for all the attacks on Sunday. What we did was a reminder to all those that forgot the atrocities committed against our Muslim brothers during the Eid-el-Fitri celebrations in Jos. Muslims were killed but the Federal Government and the international community maintained sealed lips.”

Of course, this reaction came before the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, a man who delights, in my opinion, in rousing the rabble, pointedly warned that Christians in Nigeria will no longer turn the other cheek for Moslems to assault. Oritsejafor’s anger captured the outrage of millions of well-meaning Nigerians who sincerely believe that there must be an end to the orgy of bloodletting in the land.

The more than 40 people that were gruesomely murdered in Madalla had the inalienable right to life. They went to church to worship their God in peace time. Yet, they were so callously killed. How can anybody console Mrs. Chioma Dike, the woman who lost her husband and four children in the attack or Sir Emmanuel Obiukwu, the church warden who lost four children? In the twinkling of an eye, his life was turned upside.  For Obiukwu’s and families, life will never be the same again. Do we as a people, Moslems and Christians, deserve this? My answer is no. it is easy for leaders to troupe to Madalla, have a photo session for the purposes of public relations and preach peace, but how can anybody convince Mr. Obiukwu or Mrs. Dike to have faith in Nigeria again?

As I appointed out last week, we are gradually inching towards sectarian strife, a slippery slope to hell. And my worst fears were confirmed after the Secretary General of a Muslim group, Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI), Dr. Khalid Abubakar Aliyu, addressed a press conference in Kaduna where he berated Oritsajafor for daring to warn that if the Boko Haram bombings persisted, Christians would be compelled to defend themselves.

Like Abul-Qaqa and Muh’D Kano, Aliyu confirmed that Madalla bombing was a deliberate attack on Christians. Justifying the killings and taking umbrage at those condemning the attack, Aliyu asked: “Where were they when Muslims were attacked during the Eid-el-Fitri celebration that preceded the month of Ramadan in Plateau State where Muslims were attacked, killed and maimed? Sixteen people were not only slaughtered, but roasted and eaten. Why is this thing looking like a conspiracy of silence from the media, both local and foreign? Are Muslims animals? Are they not citizens of this country? Why is it always silence when something happens against the Muslims? Who reported the Southern Kaduna genocide?”

These are very dangerous sentiments. The implication of Aliyu’s statement is that despite the denials by leaders from Nigeria’s political and religious divides that the Madalla killings had no religious undertone, the fact remains that they were indeed killed because they were Christians. It didn’t matter to those who carried out the attacks that those killed in Madalla may not have visited Plateau State in all their lives, and, therefore, had no hand in the Jos mayhem.

Sadly, the Nigerian state is showing no sign of being able to contain this threat to its very existence. And being aware of this, the Boko Haram is emboldened by the day. Last week, it gave Southerners in the North three days to leave. This threat might sound ridiculous but the fact that some people are already heeding the ultimatum shows how much faith the people have lost in the ability of the state to protect them.

Time has come for Nigerians to discuss the Nigerian project. It smacks of hypocrisy for anybody, given our dire circumstance, to still insist that Nigeria should not be discussed.

 

                        


Before sectarian violence ensues

 

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Published: December 27, 2011

 

This, no doubt, is one of Nigeria’s bloodiest Christmas. In well coordinated attacks, three churches were bombed on Sunday, the second Christmas in a row that Boko Haram was causing carnage at Christian houses of worship. Ironically, Christmas is a season of love, peace and goodwill.  

And what is worse? The terror merchants sent out word two weeks ago that they would bomb churches in Abuja and Jos on Christmas day. They promised to make Christians gnash their teeth in agony this Yuletide. And they did, almost effortlessly. That should not have been. An Igbo adage says a pre-arranged war does not consume the cripple. But this is not the case here. The security agencies were caught flat-footed when the Boko Haram came calling.

The attacks, particularly the one at St Theresa’s Catholic Church, Madalla, a satellite town about 40 kilometres from Abuja, were intended to cause maximum damage. And they did. More than 25 people, who went to church to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, were massacred. Among the dead were three policemen. Many more were injured, most of them critically. Over 30 cars were burnt and ten houses, including the church building, were destroyed.

Murderers took the merry out of the Christmas and replaced it with blood, tears and sorrow. A family of five, already seated in their Mercedes Benz car, burnt to death. As one of the surviving worshippers poignantly noted, “The peace that comes with Christmas has been desecrated. The joy of the birth of Christ has turned to tears and death of believers. How can anybody do this on a Christmas Day?”   

This, indeed, is the question that must concentrate everybody’s mind. How can anybody even contemplate such horrendous carnage, not to talk of executing it? It does not matter what cause the perpetrators of this heinous crime think they are fighting. It simply does not make sense. 

In Jos, Plateau State, the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church was equally attacked. One policeman was killed and several cars burnt. And in Gadaka town of Yobe State, a church was also attacked; many worshippers were wounded. In Damaturu, a suicide bomber killed four officials at the State Security Service (SSS). Residents heard two loud explosions and gunfire in the town. The Islamic fundamentalist group, Boko Haram, had already claimed responsibility. And its members are gloating. They said they would do it and they did. 

Nigeria is technically in a state of war. Or how else can anyone explain the revelation contained in a keynote address delivered at the 63rd anniversary of the World Human Rights Day 2011 that over 54,000 Nigerians have been killed extra-judicially since the return of democracy in 1999?

And what is the government of President Goodluck Jonathan doing? Preachments! Jonathan would want Nigerians to go about their normal businesses. He claims to be on top of the situation. His Security Adviser, General Owei Azazi, claims the government has recorded significant successes against the extremist group. Unfortunately, what we see is a Boko Haram that has become more sophisticated and audacious. His claim flies on the face of reality. 

At best, Jonathan’s reaction to the carnage could be described as indifference. This, as General Muhammadu Buhari rightly observed, is an abysmal failure of leadership. Coming at a time the government needs to reassure the traumatized citizenry of its capacity to guarantee the safety of lives and property, this is tragic, to say the least.

The primary responsibility of the government as enshrined in Section 14(2) of the Constitution of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) is to ensure the security and wellbeing of the citizens. On this score, the government has failed woefully. Many government officials insist that the spiraling violence is the antics of those who want to destabilize Jonathan’s government by making the country ungovernable. That may well be true. But how can that claim, even if it is true, comfort distressed Nigerians who are now living in the Hobbessian State of nature where life is nasty, short and brutish? How does that assuage the anxiety of the common man in this war of attrition?

Buhari’s claim that Nigeria lacks competent leaders to tackle its security problems is spot on. It has become almost a tradition now that the Nigerian government would be the last to react to the gruesome murder of innocent citizens within its borders. As Buhari noted, if not for leadership failure, why would the government speak only after foreign countries like Britain and Vatican had spoken?

Even when Jonathan spoke, there was no anger; instead, he was smiling, almost apologetic. The attacks were “unfortunate,” he said, urging Nigerians to exercise patience because Boko Haram “would not be around forever. It will end one day.” That is not the statement expected from a Commander-in-Chief to a people that are distressed and looking for re-assurance. What if the Boko Haram refuses to go away? How supine can a leadership get?

The assault on St Theresa’s Catholic Church should be a wake-up call. It is one gruesome assault on vulnerable citizens too many. It calls for national emergency. There must be national discussion. The President should deploy the same level of resources he is using in trying to convince Nigerians to accept fuel subsidy removal in rallying Nigerians round a national consensus on the menace of Boko Haram.

There is every reason for Nigerians to be worried. The country is gradually being dragged into a sectarian war and I doubt if it will survive. So far, the battle has been restricted to the North. But one needs not be a Nostradamus to predict that sooner than later, those who have acted with so much impunity, with little or no repercussion at all, may want to stretch their luck by attempting to market their lethal wares down South. When that happens, those of us here who are indifferent because of the very wrong assumption that what is happening up North is a matter of Northerners killing themselves will appreciate the wisdom in the saying that injury to one is injury to all. Our collective human essence is grossly debased whenever merchants of death callously murder innocent citizens.  

But even if the attacks are limited to the North, targeting places of worship for Christians is a dangerous trend.What happened in Madalla was a deliberate assault on Christians by Moslems. Sooner than later, something will give. It is easy to plead with Christians not to be provoked into reprisal actions or revenge attacks. But that appeal can only be heeded if the people are convinced that the government is doing something to protect them. Right now, there is nothing to show, all pretensions to the contrary notwithstanding, that government is on top of the security situation.

If the people lose confidence in the ability of the state to protect them, they will definitely resort to self-help. That will be the beginning of the end for this luckless country.

If the Boko Haram can still strike with ease as it did last Sunday, it then means that security situation is still lax. To make matters worse, the Federal Government is not treating this problem with the seriousness it deserves. The level of brutality displayed by these murderers is un-Nigerian. There is every reason to believe that some, if not most, of the purveyors of this violence are not Nigerians. 

The country’s borders, particularly in the North are very porous and mostly unsecured. What is the government doing to secure these borders? Most governors in the North have relationships with Arab countries that are highly detrimental to the country. If it is easy for terrorists to sneak in and out of the country, how can we successfully fight terrorism? What is the government doing to review our relationship with these hostile neighbouring countries from where these merchants of death are recruited? 

The augury is becoming starker.

Will 2012 be Jonathan’s year?

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Published: December 13, 2011

Can President Goodluck Jonathan reclaim the moral high ground in 2012? That is the question that has concentrated my mind in recent times.

There is no doubt that 2011, particularly the second half of the year has become an uneasy year for him.

And that is sad because 2011 ought to be his year of glory. And it was. That is the year that he won election in his own right for the first time. It was even more dramatic because he won election at the highest level – the Presidency. And his popularity was at its peak. Then, it plummeted. Right now, Jonathan is no longer the popular President that was elected in April and sworn in on May 29. The change in fortune was rather dramatic.

As we go into a New Year, the President should ask himself what happened. Nigerians don’t love him less now than when they stuck out their necks to elect him their President. But they are, no doubt, not enamoured of some of his policies. The controversial fuel subsidy removal will ever remain a sour point. It is not only controversial, it is hugely unpopular. The issue is as combustible as oil itself. The President is not helping matters by insisting that there is no alternative. How can the government insist that there is no alternative when it has failed to do what is expected of it? 

Removing subsidy, which in any case, is only the cost of corruption in the opaque oil industry is like putting the cart before the horse. It will not work. Even if the government succeeds in ramming the policy down the throat of hapless Nigerians, the bruises will be damning. The scars will be eternal, sad reminder of the high-handedness of the government. This battle is unnecessary.

Nigeria cannot make progressive in an atmosphere of acrimony. In such a milieu, Nigerians would be worst hit. President Jonathan is the only person who can change all this. We need a peaceful 2012. It should be the President’s year; the year he will start governing and not ruling Nigeria as he seems to be doing now. And his job should be easy. Rather than talking down on Nigerians, vowing at every stop to implement a policy that is so controversial, he must initiate a dialogue with Nigerians.

Even if it is true as his government is claiming that Nigeria’s economy will collapse if the subsidy regime subsists, he must convince Nigerians. Rather than projecting the negative, the President must emphasize the silver linings. 

Despite the huge challenges, which, truth be told, were not Jonathan’s making, some strides are being made in the energy sector. For the first time in the history of Nigeria, the government has been able to generate 4,000 megawatts of electricity. Granted, when juxtaposed with other countries, even in Africa, that is insignificant, but in Nigeria where a President spent almost $15 billion dollars to generate less than 1000 megawatts, that is an achievement. 

Under Professor Bart Nnaji, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), seems to have had a shot in the arm, so much so that the government is assuring that it would fast-track provision of adequate power supply to industrial zones across the country as part of its industrial revolution strategy.

So much is happening in the Aviation Sector where the British Government was compelled recently to eat the humble pie when their mega carriers, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways, were ordered to pay N35,250,000,000 ($235 million) by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) as compensation to Nigerian passengers for their unfair method of competition, deceptive practices and violation of Nigerian law. Granted, the money has not been paid and may never be paid, but for the first time, Nigeria refused to grovel before British institutions.

In the Agriculture sector, the Minister, Dr. Adeshina Akinwunmi, is doing everything to ensure that the country can feed itself. In an effort at ensuring that Nigerians consu7me what they produce, rather than the insatiable desire for foreign products, he got the international Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan to pioneer the use of 50 percent cassava flour in bread production. 

 If this policy is given a chance to succeed, the Minister pointed out that over N354 billion would be saved annually by the scheme which, no doubt, will make Nigerian farmers richer. That amount is higher than the N250 billion budgeted for fuel subsidy this year before the greed of the elite pushed it above the trillion naira mark. The President has already confirmed that is the only bread he eats now. Nigerians should follow the laudable footstep.

Why can’t the President seize the initiative and tell Nigerians what his government is doing rather being led into the avoidable crisis that is looming next year?

Nigerians don’t need this crisis. The violence in the land has been condemned by all well-meaning citizens and the President still has the support of the majority of the people who elected him in April. They did not elect him because he was going to solve all their problems. No one government does, no matter how ingenious and resourceful the leaders are. But sincerity of purpose makes all the difference.

Nigerians still love their Ebele Azikiwe, the man who charmed them with his infectious smile in April and still support him, but he must level up with them.

The time to do so is now. The President must reclaim the moral high ground in 2012 if he must come back on track.

Maximus Uba: One year after

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Published: December 6, 2011

 

How time flies!

Thursday, December 8, will be exactly one year since my friend and brother, Maximus Uba, the man we fondly called Max, died in a ghastly motor accident in Abuja.

I was still in bed on that fateful morning when Oguwike Nwachukwu, a colleague of mine and Max’s cousin called. It was unusual for him to call that early. Before I could ask what the matter was, he told me rather gravely, “Maximus is dead.” I told him he was lying. “I just spoke with Didacus, Maximus’ elder brother now. He had an accident and died instantly,” Oguwike said solemnly.

I went numb and the phone fell off my hand. I had spoken to Max the previous night. We had a minor disagreement about a month earlier over some of his political engagements. It was nothing personal but he was a passionate man who believed in any cause he set out to pursue. It was not unusual for us to disagree on issues. But that disagreement was atypical, very much out of the usual run of things between us. He was very agitated and for the first time, our disagreement would actually lead to a “cold war.”  We didn’t talk to each other for about a month.

So, when he called that night, I was pleasantly surprised and relieved. As usual, he abused me and we agreed to meet in Abuja that weekend and sort things out. What providence! How could I have known that the conversation would be our last? How, on earth, could I have known that the goodnight we bid each other would be the last? Who could have imagined that we were telling ourselves a very big lie when we said we would see over the weekend?  At that very moment, the profundity of the admonition in the “Book of Common Prayer,” that “in the midst of life, we are in death,” dawned on me.

When I broke the heartrending news to my wife, she was distraught. Max was her friend too and together we were family, literally speaking.

In my hysteria, I couldn’t write a tribute. In spite of the finality of death and the loud statement it makes, there is always that flicker of hope that it is only a bad dream. Until I saw the body lowered into the grave on December 23, 2010, I had hoped (forlornly you dare say) that somebody would call, just as Oguwike did that morning, to say it was a bad joke. But it wasn’t. Besides, how do you suddenly begin to refer to a friend of yours with whom you had a hearty telephone discussion some hours earlier in the past tense?

Max and I came a long way right from the very first day we met at the Associated Bus Company (ABC) terminal in Owerri in the late 1990s. We were coming back to Lagos and used the over 10 hours the journey lasted to discuss. By the time we arrived Lagos, we had become friends. Thus began a very close relationship that lasted until that fateful morning. I helped him secure a job with the defunct The Diet newspaper, where I was working then. The restless soul he was, he resigned after one month. Max was a good writer and loved journalism but didn’t have the patience and discipline to practice the profession. He had the knack for making friends, and, therefore, preferred Public Relations to journalism. But his was a novel genre of PR, which he combined effectively with political activism. He didn’t do his job for money. Thus, he worked for Senator Arthur Nzeribe for many years without being paid. He simply loved the maverick politician. He was always attracted to enigmas.

Because financial reward was not the motivating reason for his political liaisons, he could easily turn his back on his “clients” even after helping them win elections. It happened in the case of the late Tony Anyanwu, former member of the House of Representatives, who, incidentally was his mate in secondary school. It also happened in the case of Chief Ikedi Ohakim, former Governor of Imo State. Before Ohakim’s election in 2007, Max was one of his best friends and handled his media. It was Max who introduced most journalists, including myself, to him. I was in the United Kingdom when the former Governor won the election and I expected that his first appointee would be Max. That was not to be. They had quarreled. That was Maximus for you. Many other people in his shoes would have done anything if only to be offered political appointment. Not him.

It was this stubborn streak, which most times defied logic, that made him controversial. He made mistakes and had his faults, no doubt, after all, he was human. But our relationship was quite strong. It even became stronger when he married his wife, Lizzy.  Even when they relocated to Abuja after Lizzy was transferred to the Nigerian Law School in Bwari, and most of Max’s clients who were politicians, moved to Abuja, he would come to the airport to pick me anytime I travelled to the capital city and the wife would insist he brought me home. And in Lagos, my home was his anytime he was in town.

One year after his death, the overwhelming feeling of grief for everybody who knew him remains mutual. It didn’t matter what you were to him. What was important was that you made his acquaintance. Maximus believed in friendship. He celebrated friendship. He was a faithful devotee to the cult of humanity. His love for fellow human beings was extra-ordinary. He had passion for life and lived it to the fullest. He believed in fairness, equity and justice. He never believed in coveting anything that was not his. A friend’s problem automatically became his and all his life, he strove to be a friend in need. He would plead to lend a helping hand even when you were reluctant to involve him in your personal problems.

It is one of the supreme ironies of life that good men, most times, die young. Doctrinaire Catholicism explains that it is so because God wouldn’t want such people to be corrupted in this evil world and would, therefore, recall them to rest eternally in His bosom, while evil men are given a longer time on earth to repent. I don’t know how true this is, but if, indeed, it is true, then, it is a very unfair reward for goodness. Shouldn’t long life be a reward, a natural consequence of good life predicated on service to humanity?

But we can neither question God’s infinite wisdom nor pick quarrels with death since that would amount to an exercise in futility. But truth be told, one year after, Max’s death still hurts, and badly too.

When I read Woody Allen’s refrain in his classic, “Getting Even” that “on the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done as simply as lying down,” I must confess I didn’t quite appreciate his drift. But when the man I spoke with in the night lay dead in the morning, I became more aware of how simple and near death is.

Max believed that Nigeria could be better. In the short time he lived, he contributed his own quota. On Thursday there will be a public lecture with the theme, “The Freedom of Information Act, the media and the anti-corruption war in Nigeria,” in his honour at the Chida International Hotel in Abuja. It will be delivered by Prof. Yemi Akinseye-George. That will, no doubt, be a befitting tribute.

Continue to rest in peace, Max. 

Democracy without democrats

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Published: November 22, 2011

Professor Chinua Achebe, Africa’s most famous novelist, and Nigerian patriot par excellence, rejected the offer of the Commander of the Federal Republic medal, the nation’s third highest, last week as he did seven years ago.

When he first did in 2004, the globally acclaimed literary icon lamented the parlous state of the polity, caused by the disingenuousness and mendacity of the political leadership. That was when President Olusegun Obasanjo’s shenanigans in office almost reduced Nigeria to a banana republic. Achebe was particularly irked that Obasanjo was overtly indulging malcontents and lawbreakers in his home state, Anambra.

“For some time now, I have watched events in Nigeria with alarm and dismay,” Achebe told Obasanjo in his rejection letter. “I have watched particularly the chaos in my own state of Anambra where a small clique of renegades, openly boasting its connections in high places, seems determined to turn my homeland into a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom. I am appalled by the brazenness of this clique and the silence, if not connivance, of the Presidency.”

More than four years after Obasanjo, the brash and impetuous General left office, Achebe is still saddened that nothing has changed even when President Goodluck Jonathan, the self-acclaimed good man, is on the saddle.   

“The reasons for rejecting the offer when it was first made have not been addressed, let alone solved. It is inappropriate to offer it again to me. I must, therefore, regretfully decline the offer again,” the literary icon said in a terse statement.

But Jonathan thinks Achebe got it all wrong. A lot has changed, and positively so, he declared. This is the golden era of Nigeria’s democracy and nobody is complaining, which makes Achebe action regrettable.

Jonathan said Achebe was grossly misinformed, irreverently advising him to come back home. “Coming as it does, against the background of the widely acclaimed electoral reforms undertaken by the Jonathan administration, the claim by Prof. Achebe clearly flies in the face of the reality of Nigeria’s current political situation,” the President through his spokesman, Reuben Abati.

“The Jonathan administration has made tremendous efforts to positively change the political architecture complained about by Prof. Achebe and others.”

But rather than Achebe’s, it is Jonathan’s claims that flies in the face of reality. Proof? The murky Bayelsa political waters and brazen manipulation of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primary election preparatory to the February 11, 2012 governorship poll by the President himself.

Like Obasanjo, Jonathan is brashly trying to impose a Governor on Bayelsans. Is the manipulation part of the administration’s “extensive electoral reforms to institute a regime of electoral integrity that all Nigerians can be proud of?”

For reasons that are at best self-serving and not altruistic, Jonathan does not want Sylva to have a second term. While I believe that the embattled Governor is not an exemplar of good governance, Jonathan did not do better when he was the governor of the beleaguered state and, therefore, has no moral authority to cast an accusatory stone at successor.

But what is even more worrisome is the President’s crude manipulation of the democratic process to ensure that his godson, Seriake Dickson, presently a member of the Federal House of Representatives, is foisted on hapless Bayelsans as their next Governor, willy-nilly.  Is that the new Nigeria Jonathan is boasting of?

Alhaji Balarabe Musa, former Governor of old Kaduna State has decried the shenanigans. “The President is directly responsible for the situation because he has a problem with the Governor. But we know that other incumbents tried this before, with serious consequences on them. It is unfortunate that Jonathan cannot learn from those mistakes.”

So, what is the substance of the President’s self-acclaimed political re-engineering? How different is the Jonathan political architecture from that erected by his mentor, Obasanjo? Put differently, what has changed?

To ensure that the President’s anointed candidate becomes Governor regardless, PDP ignored a court order restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the PDP and its National Chairman, Alhaji Abubakar Baraje from “conducting, organizing or holding any meeting or ward congresses and from embarking on any activities leading to the holding of any fresh gubernatorial primary election” in the state.

Yet, the party had nothing to lose by obeying the court order or getting a superior court to vacate it because it had enough time to do either. The February 11, 2012 date for the poll gave the party a grace of 84 days from the November 19, 2011 date it fixed for the primary poll. The political parties have a minimum of 60 days within which to submit their candidates’ names to the INEC as prescribed by Section 31 (1) of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended). So, why the indecent haste?

But the PDP went ahead to conduct the primary election, declaring Dickson the winner with 365 votes. Chairman of the PDP Governorship primary electoral panel and Minister of Police Affairs, Navy Captain Caleb Olubolade (retd), who announced the results said other aspirants, Fred Ekiyehga and Austin Febo, polled two votes each, while Francis Doukpola and Michael Kalango scored one vote each.

Yet, this was a primary election shunned by INEC, Jonathan himself, Sylva, his deputy, Werinipre Seibarugu, federal and state lawmakers, council chairmen and councilors, and 102 other delegates who banded under the aegis of Concerned Statutory Delegates. Three of the aspirants, Austin Febo, Christopher Fullpower Enai and Bolobou Orufa, staged a walkout.

To secure this victory for Dickson, Jonathan literally locked down the entire state, deploying thousands of  heavily armed security men, including soldiers, mobile policemen, air force and naval personnel and operatives of the State Security Services (SSS). Armoured personnel carriers (APCs) and helicopter gunships were deployed. What desperation! This is bad politics. Obasanjo could not have done worse.

The only reason why Dickson will be installed Bayelsa Governor in February is Jonathan and that is not democracy. The will of one man flies in the face of democracy, which promotes the will of the majority.

If this is what the so-called transformation agenda is about, then, Nigerians are in for it.

 Even if we give the President the benefit of doubt and concede that he is throwing caution to the winds to manipulate the system because he is not sure that the democratic institutions will guarantee victory for the best candidate, assuming he genuinely believes that Dickson is the best candidate, what then is the worth of the electoral reform he is ululating about?

The truth is that the President is living in denial. He knows elections under his watch are as fraudulent as they have ever been. Nigerians have realized that their President is the archetypal Nigerian politician – opportunistic, egoistic and selfish.

There is nothing transcendental about Jonathan’s leadership. Unbridled arrogance of power and contempt for due process cannot be ingredients of a transformation agenda.

The unfortunate drama in Bayelsa represents the worst of Nigerian politics. So, Achebe was spot on when he said nothing has changed. 

I can understand the President’s angst. It will only take a moral colossus like Achebe to deconstruct the Jonathan myth, which spin doctors have labored so hard to build.

But embedded in Achebe’s rebuke is the age-long saying that it is only a mad people that will do the same thing over and over again and expect to get a different result.

 

Jonathan’s political faux pas in Bayelsa State

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Published: November 8, 2011

Let me state from the outset that I am not a fan of the embattled Bayelsa State Governor, Timipre Sylva. And my reason is simple. I sincerely don’t think that his achievements in office can be hoisted on the totem pole of good governance. Simply put, I am not convinced that given what he has done and failed to do in the last four years, he can be presented as the poster boy of our democracy.

But I also believe that no-matter how poorly he has performed; he has the right to stand for re-election. And the people he has misgoverned also have the inalienable right to reject him at the poll. That is the beauty of democracy. The electorate will always have the opportunity to reward elected public officers; each, according to his deeds. That is what periodic election is all about. In a democracy, a second term is a vote of confidence in a politician by the electorate. It is a reward for performance. It cannot be a reward for failure.

Democracy is not a perfect system. In fact, there is no such thing as perfect form of government, but as Sir Winston Churchill, former British Prime Minister noted in one of his famous quotes, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Second term is not the right of every elected public officer. It is a privilege conferred exclusively by the electorate.  It is always a sweet revenge when the people reject at the polls anyone who took them for granted. For the people of Bayelsa State, that payback time is drawing nigh.

But President Goodluck Jonathan wants to deny them that right. As you read this, PDP governors are in Abuja begging the man who says he is neither an Emperor nor a lion to allow Sylva to contest the party’s primary election on November 19. And the President is enjoying all the attention. When Sylva’s colleagues from the South-South went to see him on the same issue last week, he reportedly told them that he had made up his mind to shut the door against his state Governor. He has no power to do that. Ostensibly, he has a candidate he wants to impose on the people of Bayelsa, someone he thinks will do his bidding. Democracy in Nigeria is an ego business. That was the same way himself and Sylva were imposed on the people.

Aside ego, there are three other reasons why the President wants to stop Sylva. First, he wants to settle old scores with a man he considers impudent when he was the Vice President. The President never forgives real or imagined transgressions against his person.

 The second reason is that he is assuming that the people of Bayelsa are not discerning enough and therefore are incapable of making the right decisions at the poll. In other words, even when they claim that Sylva had performed poorly, they will, nevertheless, vote for him.

The third reason Jonathan prefers to stop Sylva rather than give the people the opportunity to take their pound of flesh from their non-performing Governor is because he knows that elections in Nigeria are never free and fair, all pretensions to the contrary notwithstanding. In other words, if Sylva is allowed to fly the PDP flag in the election, his victory becomes a fait accompli and even if all Bayelsans vote against him, he will still be declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

But all these show that our democracy is not working. In fact, it is debatable if we are practicing the classical democracy envisioned in the timeless definition of former American President, Abraham Lincoln in 1863 as “Government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

 If democracy is that form of government where a constitution guarantees basic personal and political rights, fair and free elections, and independent courts of law, then Sylva’s basic and political rights entitle him to run for a second term if he so wishes. It is only the constitution that can stop him from contesting election. And as I write, the constitution does not forbid him from contesting. The so-called tons of petitions and allegations of misdemeanour, which the leadership of the PDP claims it has against him, cannot be used to stop him by fiat. In any case PDP has perfected the act of cooking up allegations against officials it wants to art-twist out of public office only to drop those charges soon after.

While Sylva reserves the constitutional right to contest, the constitution also gives the people the right to reject him at the poll.

Jonathan’s intervention is, therefore, very unnecessary. Or, is he saying that PDP members who are going to vote in the primary are not discerning enough to know that the Governor is a “bad market” who should be avoided?  If Sylva is as unpopular as he is being branded, then, PDP members should know that if they elect him as their candidate, Bayelsans reserve the right to reject the party at the governorship poll next year. After all, it happened in Imo and Nasarawa states in April; proof that in a free and fair poll, the people are discerning enough to know what is good for them.

But if Jonathan’s fear is that the people will, despite Sylva’s failures in office, still vote for him, so be it. That is the beauty of democracy. The people are the kingmakers and their decision is supreme. Democracy does not guarantee that the best will always emerge victorious.

Granted, Jonathan is a Bayelsan, a stakeholder, but even as the President, he is entitled to only one vote just like any other person, and, therefore, cannot unilaterally decide for the other registered voters by fiat who their governor should be. If on the other hand his fear is that Sylva as a candidate will manipulate the election and declare himself governor, it is an indictment on his capacity to provide purposeful leadership because as the Commander-in-Chief, it behoves him to ensure that the election is not only free and fair but also peaceful. Trying to stop Sylva from contesting the primary election using executive fiat is an act of cowardice, a panic measure.

 What the President is doing is a throwback to the Obasanjo era when he decided those who contested elections on the party’s platform at every level. The result was that rather than looking up to the people, those aspiring for public office looked up to Abuja. That is the genesis of the huge mess we have made of democracy since 1999, which has engendered corruption. Is it surprising then that members of the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) have been accused of taking N500 million bribe from Sylva?

    My fear is that like most things he has done since he assumed office, Jonathan has once again bungled the Bayelsa 2012 poll, with possible security implications. He cannot open many battlefronts at the same time just to massage his ego. There are better ways of exercising the enormous powers that the Constitution bestows on the President.

Nigeria, bankruptcy and state creation

 

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Published: November 1, 2011

IS NIGERIA really broke? That is the all-important question that is concentrating the minds of not a few right now. Those who ought to know answer in the affirmative, insisting the country is tottering on the brink of bankruptcy.

They have the statistics to back up their claim. A few years after the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo brought the country out of the Paris and London Clubs’ debt peonage, they assert, the country’s debt profile today stands at $39.72 billion, which is the equivalent of N6.02 trillion. 

While the external element of this debt stands at $5.398, we are told the domestic debt stock is  $34.322 billion. When Nigeria exited the debt peonage in 2005, the total external debt stock, which stood at $35.94 billion, crashed to $3.54 billion. Many Nigerians complained then that it was unwise to part with almost $18 billion of our national patrimony, more so, when most of the debts were questionable.

But we were assured that it was in our interest to exit, so as to free the money used in servicing the debt over-hang for sundry developmental projects. We were told that never again would Nigeria be so burdened with such collosal debt.
And, indeed, there was no reason to crawl back to the debt sewage because crude oil has, ever since, sold at twice our budget benchmark. But the stark reality is that  even with the mouth-watering revenue profile, the country is still borrowing. Between 2006 when we were assured that never again will the country be classified as a debtor nation and now, those superintending over the affairs of Nigeria have borrowed $1.85 billion on our behalf.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts, Ehigie Edobor Uzamere, on Thursday said the huge debt profile was “unsettling and called for concern.”
Uzamere insinuated that a significant percentage of the borrowed money was used in financing gaps in budgets that are largely recurrent rather than projects with self-repaying capacity and job creation.
As if these figures are not scary enough, senators also revealed last week that only four states (Abia, Akwa Ibom, Jigawa and Anambra), out of the 36 states in the federation are healthy. While five others are said to be in tolerable financial health, the others are said to be in different stages of financial distress.

Following a motion on the “Looming danger of bankruptcy in states: The need for fiscal evaluation,” sponsored by Senator Olubunmi Adetunmbi, the senators agreed that steps should be taken urgently to address the precarious fiscal condition of states, in the interest of the country.

It is interesting that while Adetunmbi said he got the statistics to back up the claim that states face the looming danger of insolvency and bankruptcy from a recent research by the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, many of the state governors have disclaimed his position. But the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Lamido Sanusi, put a lie to such disclaimers when he re-echoed Adetunmbi’s claims that most of the states and local governments in the country are unviable.

Speaking at a book presentation in Kaduna during the celebration of the 80th birthday of Prof. Adamu Baike, Sanusi said the time has come when the nation needs to take the difficult step of overhauling political structures which have ensured that states spend about 96  percent of their resources paying salaries and allowances.
“Do we need 36 states? Do we need the number of ministries that we have? Is an economy where states spend 96 percent of their revenue paying civil servants an economy that is likely to grow in the long run? These are difficult questions that we need to ask
“We have created states and local governments and ministries as structures that are economically unviable and the result is that we do not have funding for infrastructure, we do not have funding for education; we do not have funding for health,” he said.
Sanusi went on to alert Nigerians that “70 percent of the revenue of the federal government is spent paying salaries and overhead; leaving the rest 30 percent for 150 million Nigerians.”
What to do? Some senators think that the only way out of the quagmire is to throw any idea about creating new states into the dustbin of history. Some others proffer a more drastic solution; merging of the existing states. The healthier states should acquire the less viable ones as it is done in the banking industry, they contend.
Granted, Nigeria faces the danger of going bust like the mess some European countries are in right now. But the country’s financial crisis is not a consequence of too many states. The country is going bust because of our inability to exorcise the monster of corruption and unbridled profligacy.


As a people, we are inebriated on the vodka of licentiousness. With an estimated population of 150 million people, even 40 states will not be unwieldy for the purpose of administrative convenience. But the cost of governance is the issue. For instance, it has been said that Nigerian lawmakers earn higher than their colleagues in rich countries such as the United States of America and Britain.


It is also said that the CBN Governor is paid about $10,000 as estacode any day he spends outside Nigeria. How much does his counterparts in other countries collect? A minister goes about in a convoy of at least 10 cars when you hardly notice the convoy of even Presidents of other countries.

Why is it that our delegation to any international event is always the largest? How much, for instance, did Nigeria spend on the Commonwealth Heads of State meeting (CHOGM) that just ended in Australia with a delegation of over 120 people? Did we need that crowd?

The answer to our financial crisis is to run a lean government and wage a decisive war against corruption. The call for merger of states is diversionary. It is a deliberate ploy to blunt the sharp edges of the agitation for an additional state in the region brazenly shortchanged by the military.

The clamour for more states, particularly in the Southeast is a call for equity, which should not be sacrificed at the altar of hypocrisy. The zone remains the only one with five states when the Northwest has seven and the others six states each. If the other states were created without using economic health as a yardstick, why must it be the case now?

The implication of leaving the Southeast with only five states in a country where state is everything is that the zone gets the least from the Federation Account. It has the least number of local governments and lawmakers in the National Assembly, with only 15 senators when every other zone has at least 18.

There are only 94 local government councils in the Southeast (Abia 18, Anambra 21, Ebonyi 12, Enugu 16 and Imo 27), out of the 774 local governments in the country. Kano State alone has 45 councils. Added to Jigawa’s 26, the two states that used to be one have 71 councils, almost the number in the whole Southeast.

With only 42 people  (Abia 8, Anambra 11, Ebonyi 6, Enugu 7 and Imo 10), Southeast has the least number of lawmakers in the House of Representatives where the Southsouth has 65 and Southwest 73. I am not talking about the North where Kano State alone has 26 lawmakers in the lower chamber of the National Assembly.

All these amount to gross injustice and marginalization. It is even more so when the issue of non-viability is used as a smokescreen to deny the zone what they rightly deserve. The way to stop states from going bankrupt is not by merging them but by introducing real fiscal federalism, which will ensure that states eat what they kill.

Agitation for creation of more states cannot stop until there is equity. And that can only be when the injustice meted out to the Southeast is redressed.

 

            


Okorocha’s Rescue Mission and world’s tallest tower

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Published: October 25, 2011

If there was anything close to what is now known as the Arab Spring in the April 2011 elections in Nigeria, it was the election of Owelle Rochas Okorocha as the Governor of Imo State. It had all the trappings of a revolution.

In Nigeria, incumbency is everything. And Governor Ikedi Ohakim, right from the day he was sworn in on May 29, 2007, left nobody in doubt that he was in charge. But four years after, Imo people felt they had had enough of his leadership and wanted a change. Ohakim’s ouster hadn’t much to do with his inability to deliver the dividends of democracy to the people.

Placed on a scale, the performance pendulum would swing his way when compared with his predecessor, Chief Achike Udenwa, who spent eight years in office. But the people wanted him out. That, many will argue, is the beauty of democracy. It is not about an angel being in power. It is all about the choice of the people; their right to decide who governs them.

Ohakim’s woes were compounded by the sudden entrance of Okorocha into the gubernatorial race on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), a party many Igbo claim as theirs and believe actually won the governorship elections in the state in 2003 and 2007.

To be sure, Okorocha was a known political quantity. It is said that he won the PDP governorship primaries in 1999 but party leaders settled for Udenwa, who came a distant third. A man with the gift of the gab, he further raised his political profile when he became a presidential aspirant.

So, when he joined the governorship race with a promise to rescue the state from bad governance, the message resonated with the people. Since May 29 when he took his oath of office, Okorocha has made a wind song out of his so-called rescue mission.

But Imo people are becoming wary of the character and content of this rescue mission. Their uneasiness was by no means assuaged when the Governor, himself, unveiled his action plan penultimate Monday.

Speaking at a three-day retreat he organized for top government officials at the Nike Lake Resort, Enugu, Okorocha said, “My vision is for Imo State to be a government of sacrifice with the political will that is aligned to the culture of the people and that is decentralized.”

 It is instructive that the retreat held five months after the Governor assumed office. So, it took that long for members of his team to buy into his vision. But, isn’t the vision itself blurred? A mission statement ought to be precise, leaving no room for conjecture. But this is not the case here. Okorocha’s vision of governance is as fuzzy as it is vague. It is all about rhetoric. There is no substance. Unfortunately, governance is not all about speechifying.  Speech-making could wheedle the unwary, the uninitiated and garner the votes in an election but governance is about vision and clear-cut strategy to actualize the vision.

Beyond the oratory, in concrete terms, his vision as captured in the above statement is hazy. It is even hazier when the content of the rescue mission is thrown into the mix. The Governor told his lieutenants at the retreat that he had initiated landmark projects that will boost the state’s economy.

These projects to be executed within four years include new airport terminal, a five-star hotel, ecumenical centre, shopping mall, world’s tallest tower and a new university. In addition, Okorocha said he had given the Deputy Governor, Agbaso, the approval to establish Imo Construction Company (ICC) with modern equipment that will compete with notable construction companies in the country.

 Imo, though an oil producing state, is essentially agrarian. With virtually all the industries in the state, private and public, becoming moribund, most of the youths, with good university education, remain unemployed. The consequence is the high level of brain drain. Except the few that are employed as civil servants in Owerri, most of the skilled people have left the state in search of jobs in other states.

The first challenge of any government that is on a rescue mission would be a reversal of this trend by creating jobs. Most of the big businesses in other states of the country are owned by Imo people. So, what is it that makes them prefer setting up businesses in even hostile environments and not in Imo? Is it lack of infrastructure, insecurity or unfavourable government policies?

Agriculture, which presently employs over 70 percent of the people, is still practiced at a very subsistent level. With strategic investment, it could become the mainstay of the state’s economy and providing decent jobs to boot. Imo could also be a tourist destination. To reposition the state, the government needs to think out of the box. There should be a scheme that will promote small scale industries. Government’s capacity to employ labour is very limited. It is essentially the medium and small scale industries that create employment. If there are 5,000 small business enterprises, each employing three people, 15,000 jobs would have been created. Most of these companies don’t even need more than N2 million as start-up capital.

A rescue mission presupposes an attempt at doing things differently for good. Unfortunately, a look at Okorocha’s agenda does not engender the feeling that he is in a hurry to tread on a different path from his predecessors. If anything, he wants to rescue Imo from the morass of bad leadership by doing the same things he accused his predecessors of doing.

Does Imo airport need a new terminal? Perhaps! But that is not a priority and can hardly be a rescue agenda. The government-owned Concord Hotel, built by the administration of late Chief Sam Mbakwe in the early 1980s, is grossly mismanaged. Rather than building another hotel which will sooner than later be mismanaged also, Okorocha should “rescue” Concord Hotel from decay and create the enabling environment that will attract investors in the hospitality industry. Who says that the Protea, Sheraton and other hotel franchises in the world cannot build five star hotels in Owerri, as they are doing in other parts of Nigeria if it is worth their while?

Now, what purpose will a new university serve? Imo State has one of the highest numbers of tertiary institutions in the country. In Owerri alone, there is the Federal University of Tecnology, Alvan Ikoku College of Education, a degree awarding institution which has been taken over by the Federal Government. There is the Federal Polytechnic, Nekede, and the Imo State University. There is also the Federal University of Agriculture, Umuagwo. Presently, Imo State University is grossly underfunded, and I daresay, mismanaged. It is no more than a glorified secondary school, with little or no teaching and learning going on. So, what purpose will a new university serve when government is unable to manage the existing ones?

I don’t know what the idea of an ecumenical centre is all about, neither am I sure that the building of a shopping mall should be seen as an achievement worth celebrating by a government on a serious rescue mission. It reminds me of Achike Udenwa celebrating the opening of a Mr. Big’s eatery in Owerri as one of his landmark achievements.

Perhaps, the most ridiculous of these projects will be the “world’s tallest tower.” What purpose will the tower serve? Okorocha is proving by the day that he a vainglorious person. Will the tower be a monument to his narcissism? In absurdity, this can only be compared to his appointment of a “Chief Comedian of the State” or SA, Comedy.

Now, how will the Imo State government run a construction company? Where will the ICC bid for contracts – in Imo only or throughout Nigeria? Will the Deputy Governor, who has been mandated to set it up, be the Chairman or the Managing Director? Will any other construction company successfully bid for any contract in the state?

It may be uncharitable to say that a man who won the governorship primaries 12 years ago and aspired to be Nigeria’s president is unprepared for the task. But that is exactly the impression Okorocha is creating.

The long suffering people of Imo need a better deal. Unfortunately, the situation is uninspiring because if the content of his rescue mission is what Okorocha articulated in Enugu, the only thing that is certain is that the Governor’s mission, itself, is in dire need of rescue.

 

Ekweremadu’s misfire on Igbo Presidency

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Published: October 11, 2011

Deputy Senate President, Chief Ike Ekweremadu, is, without any doubt, one of the greatest beneficiaries in the present political dispensation. His rise to political prominence has been as meteoric as it is dramatic. From being one of the boys running errand for Dr Chimaroke Nnamani , former Enugu State Governor, and without any exceptional political skills, he was made a Senator in 2003 by his political godfather.

 

Today, Ekweremadu is not only a three-time Senator, he is the Deputy Senate President, a position he has held since 2007. He is also the highest ranking Igbo man in public office today. How lucky can anyone get? Smarter politicians in his position would have quietly enjoyed the enormous, albeit unmerited wealth and privileges, which public office in Nigeria, as it is always the case, has placed at his doorstep.

But as it is often the case with people “whose palm kernels were cracked by benevolent spirits,” the Senator representing Enugu West seems to have been blinded by inordinate political ambition. The consequence is that he has become arrogant and like the proverbial Nwanza bird that overfed itself and challenged its Chi to a wrestling contest, Ekweremadu thinks that his continued political relevance can only be realized at the expense of collective Igbo political aspiration.

The Igbo want one of their own to superintend over the affairs of the country in 2015. A legitimate ambition, no doubt, but Ekweremadu thinks otherwise. Although he was gracious enough not to dismiss the idea as idiotic like Chief Ojo Maduekwe did some years ago when he became inebriated on the President Olusegun Obasanjo third term liquor, the Enugu State-born lawmaker nevertheless distanced himself from the aspiration of his kinsmen, urging them to perish the thought.

Rather than aspiring to produce the President of Nigeria in 2015, Ekweremadu strongly believes that the Igbo should be contended with being given access to mainstream politics or what he calls “politics of inclusiveness.”

“Everybody cannot be President of Nigeria. As an Igbo man, I don’t think the issue of Presidency is the major concern. It is inclusiveness in discussing things that concern  Nigeria, making sure that they are part and parcel of decision making in Nigeria,” he lectured his kinsmen.

To drive home his point, he stressed that the Igbo have never had it so good in Nigeria. “The Secretary to the Federal Government (SGF) is an Igbo man. He is one of the few persons that see the President every day. The present Deputy Senate president is an Igbo man and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. It never happened before. We are in major mi an ministries. There is only one person who can be speaker of ECOWAS Parliament in Nigeria and the Nigerian people obliged an Igboman. To me, the important thing is that inclusiveness.”

“We have had other parts of the country that produced the President and yet it never changed their fortunes better than any other place. The north has had the presidency many times. If you go to Minna, for instance, the road is worse than any road in the South East.”

To be fair to the Deputy Senate President, some well-meaning Nigerians are on the same page with him on the issue. If Nigeria must make progress, such people argue, there is need to sacrifice ethnic origins of the President on the altar of competence. What should be of utmost importance is the capacity of the man who will superintend over the affairs of 150 million Nigerians. Countries that have made giant development strides adopt this leadership recruitment paradigm.

Truth be told, the country’s leadership crisis cannot be put down to geography. We have had as many bad leaders from the North as we have had from the South. Our misfortune is that we have had leaders who seem to have no stake in the enterprise called Nigeria. Therefore, their leadership vision does not go beyond the glamour of the office and the stupendous wealth they are able to acquire at the expense of the long-suffering masses. Despite all protestations to the contrary, we have not had leaders whose major motivation in power is the promotion of common good.

But while competence is the ideal leadership recruitment yardstick, Nigeria is far from being an ideal country and Ekweremadu knows that. The quest for a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction is a call for equity, fair play and justice. It is a call that is more fundamental than the picture he naively painted. As Senator Uche Chukwumerije correctly pointed out in his Igbo Day speech late last month, the Southeast has become the backwater of Nigeria. Today, fellow citizens mock the idea of a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction. The Southeast has been deliberately pushed down the country’s power rung.

By mocking the idea of Igbo Presidency, Ekweremadu, just like Maduekwe before him, has joined the rank of Ndigbo helping other Nigerians to push Ndigbo to the “brink of an open grave.”

It would have been heartwarming if his position was borne out of patriotism. No! it was not altruistic. His position was selfish, a ploy to sequester the Igbo political aspiration. Ekweremadu was simply trying to sacrifice the interest on Ndigbo at the altar of his own vaunting political ambition.  But he is naïve.

There is no doubt that he has found a political rhythm with the Senate President, David Mark. Ekweremadu knows that Mark’s ultimate ambition is to succeed President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011. His political calculation is that he will be nominated as mark’s running mate or stay back in the Senate and inherit the Senate Presidency. To achieve any of these goals, the Igbo Presidency project must be shot down.        

But Ekweremadu needs to be told the truth. Granted, he is the highest ranking Igbo political office holder today. But he is by no means the political leader of Ndigbo. And it is presumptuous of him to assume that the position confers on him the right to decide what the political aspiration of the Igbo should be. Granted, he has become very wealthy by virtue of his position but in our multi-ethnic federation with its winner-takes-all, hawkish politics, the position of the Deputy Senate President ranks next to nothing in the pantheon of Igbo corporate interests. The position does not in any way enhance the Igbo quest for political leverage; it does not stop the cold-blooded murder of harmless members of the Movement for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) on the streets of Igboland by security agents. The position can neither facilitate the building of a second Niger Bridge nor ensure even minimum federal presence in terms of infrastructure and industries in the South East.

In Nigeria, the presidency makes all the difference and that is what the Igbo want for the good of the country. Ekweremadu should enjoy his good fortune but he is not an Igbo leader and therefore not in a position to determine what is good for them in the Nigerian federation. His very unwise counsel is regrettable.